It had a
reproach in it that cut the wife deep-deep as the fountain of tears;
and she went across the room and knelt at the bedside, burying her
face in the clothes on the feet of her children, and sobbed silently.
The man sat with bent head, looking into the glowing coal,
whistling through his teeth, a look of sullen resignation and
endurance on his face that had never been there before. His very
attitude was alien and ominous.
Neither spoke for a long time. At last he rose and began taking off
his coat and vest.
"Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but go to bed."
She did not stir-she might have been asleep so far as any sound or
motion was concerned. He went off to the bed in the little parlor,
and she still knelt there, her heart full of anger, bitterness, sorrow.
The sunny uneventfulness of her past life made this great storm the
more terrifying. Her trust in her husband had been absolute. A
farmer's daughter, the bank clerk had seemed to her the equal of
any gentleman in the world-her world; and when she knew his
delicacy, his unfailing kindness, and his abounding good nature,
she had accepted him as the father of her children, and this was the
first revelation to her of his inherent moral weakness.
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